Hello. My name is Gloria, and I am a television watcher.

(This is the part where you say "Hi, Gloria.")

I am 50 years old, a homemaker in Louisville, and the mother of two grown children who call me mostly during commercials. They learned that the hard way. I have read the TV Guide cover to cover every single week since Nixon was in the White House. My husband Harold says I should get out more. I get out plenty. I go all the way to the kitchen during the weather.

My scanner is broken, so there's no picture of me. Just imagine a nice lady in a recliner with a TV Guide in one hand, a pen in the other, and a look of total peace on her face.

My Stories
I have watched the same soap opera since 1974. In that time I have seen one woman get married six times, come back from the dead twice, and find out she had a twin sister nobody had mentioned for twenty years. I have been through amnesia, a plane crash, and a baby switched at the hospital.

I have been married to Harold for 28 years. The most exciting thing that has ever happened to us is the time the dryer caught fire in 1986. So you tell me who has the better writers.

When I had my gallbladder out in 1991, the first thing I asked the nurse was not "How did it go?" It was "Did anybody tape it?" Harold did. He then taped a basketball game over the second half. We don't discuss it.

JEOPARDY! Standings
Pinkney household, 1984 to present

Harold's best categories are Sports, Potent Potables, and anything that comes up while I'm in the bathroom. He likes to say he knew the answer but "didn't say it out loud." That is not a win, Harold. That is called thinking. We play house rules: you don't have to phrase it in the form of a question, but you do have to say it before the other person does.

Harold keeps telling me I ought to try out for that new Millionaire show they had on in August. I would, but they'd probably want to tape it at 12:30.

Book Club
I have read every book Oprah has picked since the very first one in 1996. Before that, the last thing I read all the way through was the TV Guide Fall Preview issue. (I still read that too. In this house it's a holiday.) Now I have a library card and a bookmark. Harold asked me if I was feeling all right.

This year's Fall Preview came out and I have circled eleven new shows. Four of them will be cancelled by Thanksgiving. I can always tell which four. It's a gift.

The Remote Control War: A Brief History

• 1983 – We get our first TV with a remote control. Harold carries it around the house like the Olympic torch.
• 1987 – The remote disappears for three days. It is found in the freezer behind the pork chops. Nobody has ever confessed. (It was me.)
• 1994 – Harold figures out he can flip between two ball games at the same time. I figure out how to take the batteries out.
• 1999 – We now own four remotes: the TV, the VCR, the cable box, and one that nobody knows what it goes to. I keep the good one in my apron pocket. Harold has been holding the one that goes to nothing since Easter. He hasn't noticed.

Ladies, this war can be won. Get an apron with deep pockets.